YEAR IN REVIEW 2001: SIDEBAR: DIAMONDS

Diamonds: Fuel for Conflict In 1998 the UN Security Council imposed an embargo on diamonds from areas held by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). A Council report in March 2000 claimed, however, that significant numbers of UNITA diamonds continued to reach world markets. The report implicated De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., the Anglo-South Africa company that controlled about 60% of the global trade in rough diamonds. The report also criticized the world's largest diamond market, in Antwerp, Belg., for not verifying the origin of the diamonds traded there. In the Angola conflict, which originated during the Cold War, the government funded its military with oil revenues, whereas UNITA resorted to diamonds. Diamonds also fueled the fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That conflict continued the 19th-century scramble for Africa, but with African nations now trying to control Congo's vast natural resources. Lucrative diamond concessions were given to companies tied to Zimbabwean military officers, including close associates of Zimbabwe Pres. Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe was the strongest backer of Congo Pres. Laurent Kabila, who was also thought to have personally benefited from diamond deals. Both Uganda and Rwanda, the main supporters of Congo's anti-Kabila rebels, purportedly profited from diamond mines under rebel control. More than those conflicts, however, the war in Sierra Leone directed world attention to the destructive role of diamonds. Following the collapse of a fragile peace in May, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) renewed its battle against the government of Pres. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. Investigations by the UN and other organizations revealed a network that brought weapons, chiefly from Bulgaria and Ukraine, into Sierra Leone. Often transactions involved the direct exchange of diamonds for arms. Investigators also presented evidence that stones from RUF areas reached diamond-cutting centres in Belgium and Israel. In July the UN Security Council banned the trading of all diamonds from RUF Sierra Leone. Credible allegations emerged that RUF diamonds and weapons passed through Liberia with the cooperation of Liberian Pres. Charles Taylor, a close associate of RUF leader Foday Sankoh. Such transshipments made the UN embargo virtually impossible to enforce. The diamond industry feared that public revulsion against so-called blood diamonds would lead to a general boycott of the gems. De Beers pledged in July that it would buy no diamonds from rebel groups. Despite those efforts, considerable difficulties remained. Once a diamond was polished, for example, there was no way to identify its origin definitively. Also, corruption in many diamond-producing countries allowed smugglers to launder embargoed stones through legitimate channels. Matthew A. Cenzer Globalization-Why All the Fuss? In 2000 the media were full of references to globalization of the economy, communications-even politics and military affairs. Large crowds turned out to protest meetings such as that of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle, Wash., in 1999 or called attention to International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies in granting loans to struggling economies. What were these protests all about? Globalization is a phenomenon involving the integration of economies, cultures, governmental policies, and political movements around the world. Internationalization is nothing new. Many of the large empires and religious movements represented forms of globalization. Trade and investment between countries have promoted interdependence of the world's economies for centuries. What is now called globalization, however, represents an exponential acceleration of the integration process. As early as 1962 the Canadian visionary Marshall McLuhan wrote that the electronic age was turning all humanity into a "global tribe," and the term global village is attributed to him. Nowadays, the larger corporations organize production on a worldwide scale. Each step in the value-added chain, from research and development to processing of raw materials, production of parts, assembly of components, and marketing of the final product, is carried out in the most advantageous geographic location, regardless of where corporate headquarters are located or where the final good is sold. The globalization of markets means increasingly that similar goods are sold around the world for similar prices. The highly integrated financial and commodity markets see price movements in one part of the world instantaneously reflected in other major markets. The BBC, CNN, MTV, and the Internet have accelerated the integration of global culture. Teenagers around the world watch the same videos, listen to the same music, and wear the same clothes. At the same time, television audiences in virtually all countries watch the same major events, listen to the same financial forecasts, and see the same three-minute glimpses of ecological disasters. As globalization proceeds, the economic welfare of individuals is increasingly impacted by global market forces beyond the control of nation states and international institutions outside the domestic political process. Institutions such as the WTO and the IMF have become the target of criticism and protests from all sides. Some believe that too many economic decisions have been delegated to these institutions; others believe they should be given greater responsibility for solving the world's social and environmental problems. Some complain that they are secretive and unresponsive to civil society, while others worry about the loss of national sovereignty when citizen groups influence decision making in these institutions directly rather than indirectly through national governments. Clearly, the reality of globalization has outstripped the ability of the world population to understand its implications and the ability of governments to cope with its consequences. At the same time, the ceding of economic power to global actors and international institutions has outstripped the development of appropriate global political structures. As a result, probably many more years of public confusion and unfocused protests can be expected as the stable new global world order takes shape. Geza Feketekuty India's Computer Revolution In May 2000 India's lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha (House of the People), passed the Information Technology Bill to boost e-commerce and Internet-related business in the country. The bill provided a legal framework for e-commerce, legalized digital documents, and created a police task force to deal with the unsavoury fallout of India's computer revolution-cyber crime. The bill was another milestone in India's journey toward becoming a key player in the knowledge economy, a journey that started with the 5th-century Indian mathematician Aryabhata I's introduction of the concept of zero, the basis of all programming. At the nucleus of the computer revolution were the major metropolitan cities, notably Mumbai (Bombay) and Chennai (Madras), and the silicon triangle of Bangalore, Pune, and Hyderabad. With the help of these cities, India exported an estimated $4 billion worth of software to the West. Wipro Ltd., a conglomerate based in Bangalore, was identified as India's third largest information technology (IT) company, and Wipro's chairman, Azim H. Premji (see Biographies), was listed as one of the world's richest men. Unlike the Industrial Revolution, which benefited only India's urban elite, the knowledge revolution by 2000 had permeated all sections of Indian society. In a clutch of villages in Madhya Pradesh, an intranet connected rural cyber cafs, allowing villagers access to computerized land records. Project Gyandoot ("Messenger of Knowledge") helped farmers get the best prices for their produce from nearby markets such as Indore and Mumbai. Another wired village, Nayla, Rajasthan, used the Internet in social development schemes, an innovation that impressed U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton during his March 2000 visit to India. What powered the computer revolution was India's intellectual capital-an over four million-strong technically trained workforce fluent in English-and a 10-12-hour time difference that ensured round-the-clock productivity for North American and European countries outsourcing their software requirements. The low cost of labour and high quality of software capabilities in India spawned such IT-enabled services as call centres, medical transcription, animation, back-office operations, and revenue accounting. According to India's Ministry of Information Technology, the software industry was projected to export $6 billion worth of software by 2001, and it hoped to reach a stunning $10 billion by 2002. Indian software was expected to be a $5.7 billion industry in 1999-2000. In December 1999 a report commissioned by the National Association of Software and Service Companies predicted that by the year 2008 software and services would contribute more than 7.5% of India's overall gross domestic product growth, with IT exports accounting for 35% of the country's total exports. The watershed year of this revolution was 1998, when such Indian companies as Infosys and Satyam Infoway emerged as world players as fears over computer problems on Jan. 1, 2000, and preparations for the European Union's new currency unit, the euro, increased demand for Indian software programmers. The Hyderabad Information Technology Engineering Consultancy (Hi-Tec City) in Hyderabad powered the growth of this computer mecca, nicknamed Cyberabad. American companies such as Texas Instruments, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Motorola, and GE Capital established operations in India, including software-development centres. Shalaka Paradkar Pop Goes the Country? As the 21st century dawned, country music-fueled by the unprecedented crossover success of Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, and the Dixie Chicks-remained more popular than ever. Still, industry-wide sales fell somewhat from the dizzying heights of the mid-1990s, and critics complained that Nashville's Music Row establishment had squandered country's soul. Rock riffs and rhythms and pop polish from a generation of performers more influenced by the Eagles than by Hank Williams left country traditionalist Randy Travis commenting, "We're supposed to be in the business of country music, so let's hear some." The first time that country went pop was in the late 1950s when legendary guitarist-producer Chet Atkins attracted a wider audience with the "Nashville sound" by adding "sweetening" strings and vocal choruses to recordings by Eddy Arnold and Jim Reeves, among others. Billy Sherrill employed dense arrangements reminiscent of producer Phil Spector to create 1960s hits for Charlie Rich and Tammy Wynette; pop vocalists such as Olivia Newton-John and John Denver "went country" in the 1970s; and in the 1980s the crossover hits that capitalized on the popularity of the film sound track of Urban Cowboy became for many country purists the epitome of pop pandering. The stars' appearances as well as their masterful exploitation of music videos helped too to contribute to recent country crossover success as much, perhaps, as did musical mainstreaming. Cover girls Twain and Hill promoted cosmetics; the seductive Dixie Chicks (Natalie Maines, Martie Seidel, and Emily Robison) sported hip hairstyles and wardrobes; and Brooks, McGraw, and newcomer Brad Paisley were photogenic hunks. Beginning in the early 1990s, some of the most roots-oriented country music came not from Nashville but from alt.country (named for the Internet's role in its proliferation), a movement that combined the do-it-yourself aesthetics of alternative rock with the song forms, instrumentation, and vocals of traditional country. Steel guitars and fiddles were moved to the background in Nashville, but twang thrived in St. Louis, Mo., the stomping ground of the pioneering band Uncle Tupelo, whose Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy went on to form the influential groups Son Volt and Wilco, respectively. Nearby, in Festus, Mo., the Bottle Rockets were launched, and in Minneapolis, Minn., the Jayhawks took off, while Steve Earle made the journey from Texas to Nashville and then to prison before returning to the music scene. The independent label Bloodshot Records, founded in 1994, made Chicago the mecca for "insurgent country" artists such as Robbie Fulks, Freakwater (with the distinctive close harmonies of Janet Beveridge Bean and Catherine Ann Irwin), cowpunk godfather Alejandro Escovedo, and the Handsome Family (Brett and Rennie Sparks), whose modern Midwestern gothic tales borrowed from the Appalachian tradition. The scene's cornerstones were Tweedy and Welsh expatriate Jon Langford of the Waco Brothers, who long ago had led the erstwhile British punk band the Mekons toward honky-tonk. Meanwhile, back in Music City, BR5-49 and Lambchop produced Nashville sounds that subverted proven pop and traditional formulas. Jeff Wallenfeldt The Vikings of 2000 In the year 2000, descendants of the Vikings achieved what their ancestors had failed to do a millennium earlier-conquer the eastern Canadian province of Newfoundland. Instead of using swords, spears, and shields, the latter-day Norsemen used songs, sagas, and a fleet of graceful replica ships to win over the people of this rocky island, where Vikings led by Leif Eriksson briefly settled in about AD1000. Capt. Gunnar Eggertsson, an Icelander and a direct descendant of Leif Eriksson, would never forget emerging from the fog, storms, and towering icebergs of the North Atlantic at the spot his ancestors had so hastily left. "L'Anse aux Meadows was a very special place. There we saw the houses that had been there since the year 1000, and we also saw the houses where people live that were like the houses we build in Iceland today," he said. More than 15,000 people climbed the rocks and gathered in the grassy reaches of L'Anse aux Meadows on July 28. Watched by millions of television viewers, choirs sang Norse songs, and the sleek Viking replica ship slendingur and a flotilla of other Norse boats danced over the waves, re-creating the arrival of the first Europeans from Iceland a thousand years earlier. L'Anse aux Meadows, located on the northern tip of western Newfoundland, was the only authenticated North American Viking settlement. Sod huts and a wide array of relics were discoveredin 1961 by archaeologists Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad, who were led to the site by a local fisherman. The sheltered meadow became a United Nations heritage site featuring reconstructed sod huts and displays of Norse artifacts. The Vikings spent three or four years in the land they called Vinland, sailing as far south as the Gulf of Maine, seeking timber and a location for a new colony. According to the Norse sagas, the local aboriginal people, whom the Vikings called skrlings, or wretches, then drove them back to Iceland. A thousand years later some native leaders joined the celebrations. Newfoundlanders, most of whom proudly boasted of having saltwater in their veins, clamoured for a chance to sail with the nine-person slendingur crew during its tour of the province and to work as actors at the re-creation of a Viking village built near L'Anse aux Meadows. The Newfoundland Museum staged a huge traveling exhibit of Viking and native artifacts to tell the story of the first contact between Europeans and the native people of North America. Plays and concerts also played to packed audiences as actors and singers retold the ancient tale. Kevin Cox Those Bones Named Sue On May 17, 2000, Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History unveiled a display extraordinary not only for what it was-the largest (12.8 m long), most complete, and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered-but also for its unlikely name, Sue. The approximately 67 million-year-old fossil, named in honour of Susan Hendrickson, who discovered it on Aug. 12, 1990, had made a difficult, decade-long journey to its new home, a journey that began on South Dakota's Cheyenne River Sioux reservation. Hendrickson and Peter Larson, of the Black Hills Institute for Geological Research, were prospecting there on a cattle ranch owned by Maurice Williams, who was one-fourth Native American and whose land was held in trust by the U.S. government for tax-relief purposes. Larson paid Williams $5,000 for the right to excavate the skeleton, had it shipped to the institute's Hill City, S.D., headquarters for restoration, and planned to build a museum to showcase it. As news traveled about the discovery, however, Larson began receiving sizable offers for it, and Williams, the Cheyenne River Sioux, and the federal government began to raise questions about its legal ownership and to seek its return. After federal agents seized the bones in 1992 on the grounds that government permission had not been granted for the removal of the fossil from federal lands, a convoluted battle for custody ensued. A U.S. district court ruled in April 1993 that the fossil was to remain property of the trust, and in October 1994 the U.S. Supreme Court let that ruling stand. Sue was to be the property of Williams and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The BIA gave Williams permission to sell Sue and suggested that the fossil be auctioned, a controversial move in the eyes of many scientists, who feared the commercialization and possible private collection of scientifically important specimens. Nevertheless, in 1996 Sotheby's was chosen to conduct the sale, which was held on Oct. 4, 1997, with nine bidders in the running. After only about eight minutes, the Field Museum-backed by McDonald's Corp., Walt Disney World Resorts, and the California State University system-emerged the winner, purchasing Sue for $8,362,500. Disney was to be given a replica for exhibition at Walt Disney World, and McDonald's was to get two replicas that would be taken on tour. The remainder of Sue's preparation for display was carried out in the museum's McDonald's Fossil Preparation Laboratory in full view of spectators. Because the dinosaur's 1.5-m (5-ft)-long skull was too heavy (272 kg ) for the skeleton to support, a life-size cast was used, while the actual head was displayed on the museum's second-floor balcony, where visitors could get a close-up view. Barbara Whitney